The Friendly Skies

I ganked this photograph from over at the Encyclopedia Dramatica because it reminded me of a certain phobia that I cultivated when I was little due to a dream that I had, involving giraffes and the fact that anything with long, long necks (or extremely long appendages of any kind) kind of sorta wig me the hell out.

I grew up on a dead end street, with my house right in the circle of the cul-de sac and my two best friends, Jeanne and Sheryl, living two or three houses down from me on either side, and as a result more or less facing each other. When I was about eight, nine or ten years old I dreamt that Jeanne and Sheryl went to see the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus while it was in Norfolk (which it was at the time) and had apparently both brought home these enormous life-sized giraffe balloons. Being life-sized, they were both forced to keep the balloons in their back yards. But their most distinguishing (and for me, disturbing) feature that kept them from being inside the house was the fact that the balloons had these incredibly long, long-long-long-looooong necks that hovered over the roofs of their houses and even hung over the streets, probably close to a hundred feet in length. Worse, they had these goofy grins and big googly eyes, the ignominy of all circus balloon characteristics.

I'd look out my bedroom window and see them both bobbing and swaying in the wind, silently, like long skinny brontosauruses, and remembering the shiver that went down my spine. As if in a lucid dream, I imagined them attacking me as soon as I walked outside, in the way that you think of something happening in a dream and then it actually occurs. And as I ventured outside, walking idly into the center of the cul-de-sac, trying to look casually to my left towards Sheryl's giraffe, head high in the clouds, I suddenly turned to my right and was CONFRONTED with the giant googly-eyed giraffe face from Jeanne's back yard, inches from my own. I could see that the body was still standing behind Jeanne's house, but it appeared that the wind had blown the neck down towards the street level, and just happened to be bobbing a fraction from my head, smiling at me with that stupid grin. The wind just happened to blow it there. Or, did it...

Now when I see this photograph I am haunted by the image of that same giraffe balloon, still seeking me out, always knowing where I am, even jet-bound to New York or Austin or wherever I feel inclined to hide, foolish mortal that I am. Except now his goofy face looks so.... so serious. So determined. He missed his chance to kill me in my childhood nightmares. This time, this time there will be no waking up screaming.




On a completely unrelated note, I have declared today the 8th Annual Talk Like Mark E. Smith Day. So get your slur onnnn-suh!